BuzzBallz Scores Legal Win in Trademark and Domain Fight Against Big Sipz

(BuzzBallz)

BuzzBallz has won a federal court ruling against rival premixed cocktail maker Patco Brands in a dispute over the Big Sipz trademark and two web domains.

According to Law360, U.S. District Judge Eumi K. Lee granted BuzzBallz’s motion for summary judgment on Patco’s remaining counterclaims, finding that Patco could not establish that its Big Sipz trademark was distinctive when BuzzBallz registered and owned the disputed domains.

The case centered on bigsipz.com and bigsipzcocktails.com. Patco, which markets premixed cocktails under the Big Sipz brand, alleged that BuzzBallz violated the federal Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act by acquiring the domains, registering one of them and redirecting visitors to the BuzzBallz website.

Patco also used the domain activity as part of a California Unfair Competition Law claim.

Judge Lee found that the trademark’s distinctiveness had to be established at the time the domains were registered or during the period BuzzBallz owned them. Patco did not provide enough evidence to meet that requirement.

“Here, no reasonable jury could find that Patco’s Big Sipz mark was distinctive when the domain names were registered, or at any time BuzzBallz owned them,” Lee wrote, according to the court order.

BuzzBallz acquired the domains and later transferred them to Patco for free in May 2022, within weeks of Patco contacting the company.

Patco argued that Big Sipz should have been presumed distinctive as of Dec. 20, 2021, when it filed an intent-to-use trademark application. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ultimately registered the mark in March 2023.

Lee rejected that argument, finding that the eventual registration did not retroactively establish distinctiveness as of the earlier application date.

“The ACPA provides that the mark must be distinctive ‘at the time of registration of the domain name,’” Lee wrote.

Patco also did not present evidence showing that the Big Sipz mark had acquired distinctiveness through marketing or sales while BuzzBallz controlled the domains. According to the order, Patco did not incur advertising and promotional expenses for Big Sipz until September 2022, while its first distributor purchase order came in November 2022.

The dispute dates back to 2023, when BuzzBallz sued Patco over patent and trademark infringement. BuzzBallz alleged that Big Sipz cocktails were designed to target its consumers and could cause customers to believe the products were produced by, affiliated with or approved by BuzzBallz.

Patco responded with counterclaims including cybersquatting and unfair competition. Among its allegations, Patco claimed BuzzBallz threatened or pressured retailers and distributors not to carry Big Sipz products.

BuzzBallz argued that its acquisition of the Big Sipz domains was essentially a joke. The company cited a declaration from founder and former CEO Merrilee Kick, who said BuzzBallz transferred the domains to Patco for free and redirected the web traffic so that “when Patco was ready to acquire them, it would know who to call.”

Patco disputed that explanation and argued that BuzzBallz intended to harm the emerging Big Sipz brand and benefit from redirected traffic.

Lee did not need to resolve that dispute to decide the cybersquatting claim. Because Patco lacked sufficient evidence that Big Sipz was distinctive at the legally relevant time, the claim could not proceed.

The judge also rejected Patco’s broader California unfair competition claim.

Patco had pointed to the domain redirects, BuzzBallz’s patent and litigation activity, and its allegations involving distributors and retailers. But the court found that Patco had not identified consumers who were confused by the domain redirects or shown that the redirects materially affected its business.

Lee also found that BuzzBallz’s patent and litigation activity was protected by Noerr-Pennington immunity.

On the distribution allegations, the judge said a jury could potentially find that BuzzBallz attempted to restrict Patco’s sales. But Patco had not presented evidence that those efforts succeeded in limiting its growth or harming competition.

“Certainly, BuzzBallz did not warmly greet Patco when it entered the market,” Lee wrote. “But an unrealized desire to exclude one rival is not enough to sustain a UCL claim.”

BuzzBallz sells about 5 million cases, or roughly 120 million individual beverages, annually, according to the complaint, generating tens of millions of dollars in sales.

The case is BuzzBallz LLC v. MPL Brands NV Inc., No. 5:24-cv-04004, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.